I
was spoilt for choice yesterday. Photographing Bexley council inspecting someone’s back garden or taking photos of
the petitioners
outside the Civic Offices where a News Shopper reporter had asked to meet them.
I chose the former and will provide an update later today. Meanwhile both the
News Shopper and the
Bexley Times
has splashed the petitioners’ activities all over their websites. They are on the
This is London site too.

The petition was the brainchild of Elwyn Bryant, the man who arranged the
inspection of Bexley council’s Register of Members’ Interests with the Head of
Members’ Services, Chris Loynes, and hours later found himself (and me)
libelled on Google blogspot.

Elwyn’s petition was “We appeal to the Leader of the Council,
Councillor Teresa O’Neill, to support her Government and do the right thing by
urgently taking the appropriate steps to revise all Contracts of Employment of
staff at Bexley Council to ensure that no individual’s salary package exceeds
£100,000.00 as recommended by Eric Pickles, the Secretary of State for
Communities & Local Government.”

A couple of days ago a journalist asked Bexley council to comment and was told
that there was no way the council would entertain a petition claiming it
offended against their standing orders. Elwyn is well versed in Bexley council’s
slippery ways and knew it was inevitable that Bexley council would reject the petition.
Councillor Sybil Camsey
(Brampton ward) had already jumped the gun by saying it was “not worth the paper it is
written on” and “no one will take any notice” and that “I don’t care”. That
Bexley council doesn’t care is not news. One, two or three thousand signatures
will never be enough to derail their gravy train. That is well known;
the game with Bexley council is to watch them make another
ill-consideredanti-democratic
reputation damaging excuse. And they never let us down.

This time they jumped straight in and said they cannot discuss individual
salaries. No one asked them to. What people want to hear is an adult discussion
about Bexley’s defiance of government policy.

Bexley council claims the example salaries provided to signatories are inaccurate. Presumably
they have forgotten it was the council that provided the numbers or just maybe
they are lying again. They also told the press that the petition is “misleading”.
In what way they fail to say but it cannot be as misleading as claiming
the cheapest parking in SE London when it is dearer than any of its neighbours.
They also claim to be “transparent”. So voting to defy every one of the Secretary of State’s
recommendations on open government is transparent? Only in Teresa O’Neill’s dream world.